Engines powered down, all flights were cancelled, and 17,000 people found themselves out of work in the early morning hours of Saturday as beleaguered Spirit Airlines abruptly announced it was finished — out of business with all operations ended.
The low-budget carrier known for its bright yellow planes and cheap seating made the announcement at 2 a.m., reportedly cancelling 277 Saturday flights and leaving passengers with no one to talk to. The airline was unable to secure enough funding from the federal government to save it from bankruptcy.
“There’s no workers here, so everybody’s just lost,” one traveler told Los Angeles’s NBC affiliate in front of an empty ticket counter. “Nobody’s there, and I’m kinda confused.”
Company officials for the Michigan based company, which had operated for three decades made the announcement on its website:
It is with great disappointment that on May 2, 2026, Spirit Airlines started an orderly wind-down of our operations, effective immediately. To our Guests: all flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available. We are proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry over the last 34 years and had hoped to serve our Guests for many years to come.
“Spirit Guests should not go to the airport,” a warning reads on the home page.
The website also offered an email address and a number to call with questions about the “wind down process.”
However, calling it only gives information about the company’s bankruptcy filing.
A link to “refund status” sends a customer to a login page and a “find my trip” menu.
Spirit became the first significant airline to halt operations in nearly 25 years, CNN reported.
The company first began operations as a Michigan-based trucking company before getting into the air travel business in the 1980s.
Spirit had about 9,000 flights scheduled from early May through the end of the month, according to one analytics firm Cirium, with those flights offering a total of 1.8 million seats.
That translates into an average of about 300 flights and 60,000 potential passengers per day this month, according to CNN.
The company reportedly was looking for a $500 million bailout from the Trump administration, “but the embattled low-cost airline couldn’t get enough backing,” the New York Post reported.
While President Donald Trump signaled he was favorable to saving the carrier, the idea of a bailout was met with blowback by Republicans in Congress, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Tom Cotton (R-AR).
Spirit has had a difficult time turning a profit since a dramatic decrease in travel from Covid restrictions in 2020, and its seating capacity had reportedly been cut in half by the spring of 2024.
Twice in less than a year the company filed for reorganization under bankruptcy laws.
However, “rising fuel costs associated with the ongoing Iran war were most likely the final nail in the coffin,” the New York Post concluded.
Passengers who had tickets for the now-cancelled flights will receive automatic refund payments back into their accounts, CNN reported early Saturday, per the airline.
It was not immediately known what will happen to the company’s properties, including its jets, following the nationwide shutdown.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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